Go.com has become the second major crawler-based search engine to roll out a paid inclusion program. Its new US $199 "Premium Service" will add any URL submitted to its crawler-based results within 48 hours and revisit that URL on a weekly basis, for one year.

The price is much more expensive than Inktomi's paid inclusion program. Rolled out in November 2000, it charges $20 for the first URL, $10 for each URL after that and offers a further discount if more than 100 URLs are submitted.

However, Go is almost certainly going to include a separate submission to its Go Guides directory as part of the $199 price, in the near future. In addition, should such a bundled submit service emerge, then it's entirely possible that a separate service with a lower price may be offered for those who just want to be included in Go's crawler-based results. How low? More in line with Inktomi, Go expects.

As with Inktomi, Go says that its paid submission service is a complement to its regular crawling, not a replacement. In other words, web pages will continue to be added to its index for free, but the paid program gives webmasters a guaranteed way to ensure they get in.

Go's free Add URL system also remains, but pages submitted via this may not get added for up to 10 weeks -- if at all. To improve the odds of a free listing, a site should be listed in the Go Guides directory, Go says. That should put it on the priority list for Go's spider.

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